Randa Abdel-Fattah Quotes

As a writer, you have to realize that people want to like the characters, so you have to be careful to keep them involved.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

If there is any secret to my success, I think it's that my characters are very real to me. I feel everything they feel, and therefore I think my readers care about them.

It's hard to be scared if you don't feel for a character, because you don't care if they die or live.

People seem to need a likable protagonist more than ever.

My characters are always utterly sympathetic to me, if that makes any sense.

I am generally wary of the demand for 'likeability' in fiction, which I think is a bastardisation of the demand of identification - itself something of a suspect notion.

People like the comedy more when they care about the characters.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

You want to feel that your reader does identify with the characters so that there's a real entry into the story - that some quality speaks to the individual.

Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.

If you don't care for the villain, if you don't love him and hate him at the same time, then he's just boring.

I don't like the idea the viewer can kind of sit there and go, 'Make me like this person.' People aren't inherently sympathetic.

I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

What is overriding that and most important is that readers generally are interested in a good character. They might be more comfortable with Harry because they think they know him, but they always seem willing to give somebody new a chance.

I'm hopefully making the reader feel a lot about the characters and then about their own life.

To connect with the characters, you need to connect with the world. If the world feels vaguely familiar, I believe the characters will feel relatable.

In terms of the parallels, I've never related less to a character than Riggan.

I think, ultimately, if you create characters that people like and can relate to, your characters are grounded on a human level even if your cars are not.

To get a connection to your characters, you have to put them in a situation that you can feel yourself.

I think there has to be an empathic strike between the reader and the protagonist. There has to be something said or known that connects the reader to this person you're going to ride through the story with.

I'm focused on finding characters I connect to.

What I need, as a reader, is a character with a heart and a voice and a pulse. I need a character so vivid and so specific that she doesn't feel like fiction.

I try to create characters people want to sit with, even if nothing is happening.

I think there is a difference between connecting with a character and supporting and believing their policies.